Mavic Destroyed - How can I get my log analyzed?

[AnzacJack]

Thank you very much! It definitely looks like I gave up too soon. Oh, well! Every outcome is a lesson for the next time. This one happened to cost $800.

I really appreciate your insightful analysis of the log data. I will conduct some experiments with my next Mavic on how this RTH reacts to control inputs, in a controlled environment, such as a huge field, to see what happens. I'm thinking I can mimic the disconnection by simply placing the RC into a Faraday cage to cause the AC to self-initate the RTH. Then, we will be in the same situation, and I can try the same things.

Many thanks!!!

You can mimic the disconnect by turning the controller off

 

[cardplayer71]

It seems you made the post but wanted no input until you provided more information?
Maybe you should have waited until you had all of the required info if you didn't want any preliminary assessments

If you read the OP, you will see that I explained my personal observations, then asked how to get the log analyzed. At no time did I ask for conjecture or speculation.

The request is even in the subject line.

 

[KiterTodd]

Thanks OP for sharing and everyone else who responded. Can't tell you how much I learn from these threads. It's also interesting to watch the "old dogs" sleuth around the data files and tell exactly what happened.

 

[Robbyg]

If you read the OP, you will see that I explained my personal observations, then asked how to get the log analyzed. At no time did I ask for conjecture or speculation.

The request is even in the subject line.

Cardplayer I spent an hour last night trying to find a video that I remember watching that kind of matched your situation. I found it and here it is. It answers several RTH questions.

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[Robbyg]

The manual clearly addresses OA as it concerns RC loss of signal Failsafe RTH and Smart RTH, but is fuzzy on how OA behaves with the Low Battery RTH.

The manual is unclear on so many things. I can only assume it's meant to give them leeway in liability cases. We need to try and start making up some FAQ and get them put up as stickies in the forum.

Rob

 

[cardplayer71]

Cardplayer I spent an hour last night trying to find a video that I remember watching that kind of matched your situation. I found it and here it is. It answers several RTH questions.

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Rob,

Thank you! This is great. I also found this resource, which admittedly, still uses screenshots from the manual, but some may find it helpful as well:

RTH: How It Works and What to Avoid

Thank you,
cardplayer71

 

[Robbyg]

Rob,

Thank you! This is great. I also found this resource, which admittedly, still uses screenshots from the manual, but some may find it helpful as well:

RTH: How It Works and What to Avoid

Thank you,
cardplayer71

Interesting read cardplayer, thanks.

When I watched the video what surprised me the most was that they did not include the no signal loss RTH when using "Point of Interest" mode. That means your Mavic just circles the Drain until the low battery point is reached and then hopefully it makes it back on low battery RTH.

Rob

 

[CyberdyneSystems]

Yep found this RCA deconstruction very useful and an excellent learning opportunity to prevent doing the same thing with my Mavic. I still like one of the other forum member’s suggestions for a firmware update. The Mavic does a pretty good job of knowing how much flight time is left in the battery. If adequate battery life remains why not simply back track the path on a loss of signal RTH at least until battery life indicates a straight line return is the only remaining option. This seems like it would give the best opportunity for a signal reconnect.


What I also learned is if/when I need to come to this forum with a “Hey I Lost/Crashed My Mavic Can You Help” I will approach with the humble opinion that I made a pilot error. It seems in all of the cases that have been fully dissected here that the pilot bears the lion’s (& tigers oh my…) share of the responsibility. You need to be courteous and open to criticism; I would hate for the forum experts to get feed up and quit helping noobs like myself.

 

[cardplayer71]

Here are some photos of the damage. The motors are also ruined, as they all feel as if they are salt grinders full of stones.

 

[cardplayer71]

You can mimic the disconnect by turning the controller off

I agree with this. At the same time, I like to test fault tolerance on software and devices. It is conceivable that the firmware does something different during shutdown or startup than it does during an actual disconnect event, in terms of fault tolerance and recovery. This would be helpful to my comfort level to ascertain. So, killing the signal without killing the device is the most reliable simulation of a real-world connectivity failure.

 

[dewster]

The wind my have caused your Mavic to move especially being near the cliff.

There are so many strange disconnects happening over water.


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[MarkC1210]

Hello,

I just took my Mavic on a dream trip, during which it was destroyed on day 2. Basically, I wanted to use Course Lock mode for a fairly simple shot along an ocean shoreline. The flight path was to go between a sea cliff and a rock outcropping in the sea, and to yaw the craft as it panned past the rock formation, to film the rocks from an interesting perspective. There was plenty of space there, probably in excess of 100 feet of gap.

At some point near the rocks, the Mavic lost connection. I moved closer to it, and closer to the water, in order to help regain the connectivity. Luckily, the connectivity was regained, and the flight log was transmitted, along with the real-time video of its destruction. During the disconnected period, the flight logs on my phone seem to indicate that the Mavic lurched about 100 feet toward the shore, thus putting it behind the cliff, and this was not initiated by my actions. The Mavic then initiated Go Home mode, and proceeded to fly directly toward the cliff face, as that cliff was now between me and the copter.

As I regained the visual feed, I could see the Mavic heading toward the cliff face at what appeared to be top speed (22mph or so). I made an attempt to abort the RTH via control inputs. For a brief moment, the Mavic stopped some distance from the cliff face. Notably, I applied full rearward pitch in an attempt to not crash into the cliff. Rather than fly in reverse, the Mavic accelerated and flew straight into the cliff as if it was still in Course Lock mode, despite being in Go Home mode. I am not certain if it simply ignored me, or if there is a bug where RTH does not cancel Course Lock, and the pitch commands are still applied along the original heading. Either way, it basically mashed the accelerator and destroyed itself.

Any ideas how to get this flight log analyzed? I was fortunate enough that it transmitted the flight log in the seconds before impact, and I was able to recover the wrecked craft. The flight log and its replay seem to indicate that the Mavic simply malfunctioned.

I had a nightmare today due to an antenna loss and the aircraft did not return home. This was a short flight over Loch Leven with near perfect conditions. The antenna experienced issues at around 700m so I tried turning the aircraft to fly back and the aircraft disconnected. This should have prompted a RTH but no aircraft returned. I cycled closer to the area as it was over water and the connection never regained, the drone battery was at 61% so there was plenty opportunity to reconnect. I returned back to the home point twice and no aircraft. I just updated the firmware two day ago so don't know if this is part of the cause.

Has anyone else experienced Antenna loss at such a short distance?

I have DJI care but don't know where I stand as I have no aircraft to send for replacement.........I would really appreciate any advice or indeed comments if you have had similar issues. [emoji37]


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

 

[Cyberpower678]

Here are some photos of the damage. The motors are also ruined, as they all feel as if they are salt grinders full of stones.


View attachment 7417 View attachment 7418 View attachment 7419 View attachment 7420 View attachment 7421 View attachment 7422 View attachment 7423 View attachment 7424 View attachment 7425 View attachment 7426

****. Holy mother of mercy. Looks like it was struck by a hammer.

 

[rightstuffed]

I had a nightmare today due to an antenna loss and the aircraft did not return home. This was a short flight over Loch Leven with near perfect conditions. The antenna experienced issues at around 700m so I tried turning the aircraft to fly back and the aircraft disconnected. This should have prompted a RTH but no aircraft returned. I cycled closer to the area as it was over water and the connection never regained, the drone battery was at 61% so there was plenty opportunity to reconnect. I returned back to the home point twice and no aircraft. I just updated the firmware two day ago so don't know if this is part of the cause.

Has anyone else experienced Antenna loss at such a short distance?

I have DJI care but don't know where I stand as I have no aircraft to send for replacement.........I would really appreciate any advice or indeed comments if you have had similar issues. [emoji37]


Sent from my iPhone using MavicPilots

Maybe start a new thread with this one

 

[mlaczek]

I have noticed that no one is eager to help people with these problems because when answers are given and the operators don't like the answer they start going after the messenger.

I spent a few minutes looking at the DAT file and I can tell you that from what I see the Mavic did nothing wrong. You took off with an RTH altitude set to 35M which is very low for what you were doing. The Mavic went around the cliff, it lost signal, it initiated an RTH heading exactly back to were it took off from. It went up to 35M and then I assume obstacle avoidance was off because it slammed into the side of the cliff. I could spend more time looking at it but most of the time people do not want to hear that it is pilot error.

this is why i set 80m RTH height.

(sorry for my english!)

 

[Peio64270]

I have other problems with my Mavic right now: it measures an altitude of -30m while I am flying normally about +20m just over my head and the home point.
Hopefuly, I was just testing the camera settings and not runing a Litchi waypoint mission. Further flights (after all updates ans possible calibrations) ran the same way.

I returned it to DJI workshop but what a disapointment !

 

[Cyberpower678]

I have other problems with my Mavic right now: it measures an altitude of -30m while I am flying normally about +20m just over my head and the home point.
Hopefuly, I was just testing the camera settings and not runing a Litchi waypoint mission. Further flights (after all updates ans possible calibrations) ran the same way.

I returned it to DJI workshop but what a disapointment !

Altitude is based off of the take off point, and is not in relation to the ground below it.

 

[Peio64270]

Altitude is based off of the take off point, and is not in relation to the ground below it.

I know (I already own two Phantoms). The problem arises when the Mavic says it is at -160 feet altitude when landing at the exact same place it took off some minutes ago.

 

[Flymeaway]

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5. Description of your operation when it flew away:

Hello,

I just took my Mavic on a dream trip, during which it was destroyed on day 2. Basically, I wanted to use Course Lock mode for a fairly simple shot along an ocean shoreline. The flight path was to go between a sea cliff and a rock outcropping in the sea, and to yaw the craft as it panned past the rock formation, to film the rocks from an interesting perspective. There was plenty of space there, probably in excess of 100 feet of gap.

At some point near the rocks, the Mavic lost connection. I moved closer to it, and closer to the water, in order to help regain the connectivity. Luckily, the connectivity was regained, and the flight log was transmitted, along with the real-time video of its destruction. During the disconnected period, the flight logs on my phone seem to indicate that the Mavic lurched about 100 feet toward the shore, thus putting it behind the cliff, and this was not initiated by my actions. The Mavic then initiated Go Home mode, and proceeded to fly directly toward the cliff face, as that cliff was now between me and the copter.

As I regained the visual feed, I could see the Mavic heading toward the cliff face at what appeared to be top speed (22mph or so). I made an attempt to abort the RTH via control inputs. For a brief moment, the Mavic stopped some distance from the cliff face. Notably, I applied full rearward pitch in an attempt to not crash into the cliff. Rather than fly in reverse, the Mavic accelerated and flew straight into the cliff as if it was still in Course Lock mode, despite being in Go Home mode. I am not certain if it simply ignored me, or if there is a bug where RTH does not cancel Course Lock, and the pitch commands are still applied along the original heading. Either way, it basically mashed the accelerator and destroyed itself.

Any ideas how to get this flight log analyzed? I was fortunate enough that it transmitted the flight log in the seconds before impact, and I was able to recover the wrecked craft. The flight log and its replay seem to indicate that the Mavic simply malfunctioned.

Hello,

I just took my Mavic on a dream trip, during which it was destroyed on day 2. Basically, I wanted to use Course Lock mode for a fairly simple shot along an ocean shoreline. The flight path was to go between a sea cliff and a rock outcropping in the sea, and to yaw the craft as it panned past the rock formation, to film the rocks from an interesting perspective. There was plenty of space there, probably in excess of 100 feet of gap.

At some point near the rocks, the Mavic lost connection. I moved closer to it, and closer to the water, in order to help regain the connectivity. Luckily, the connectivity was regained, and the flight log was transmitted, along with the real-time video of its destruction. During the disconnected period, the flight logs on my phone seem to indicate that the Mavic lurched about 100 feet toward the shore, thus putting it behind the cliff, and this was not initiated by my actions. The Mavic then initiated Go Home mode, and proceeded to fly directly toward the cliff face, as that cliff was now between me and the copter.

As I regained the visual feed, I could see the Mavic heading toward the cliff face at what appeared to be top speed (22mph or so). I made an attempt to abort the RTH via control inputs. For a brief moment, the Mavic stopped some distance from the cliff face. Notably, I applied full rearward pitch in an attempt to not crash into the cliff. Rather than fly in reverse, the Mavic accelerated and flew straight into the cliff as if it was still in Course Lock mode, despite being in Go Home mode. I am not certain if it simply ignored me, or if there is a bug where RTH does not cancel Course Lock, and the pitch commands are still applied along the original heading. Either way, it basically mashed the accelerator and destroyed itself.

Any ideas how to get this flight log analyzed? I was fortunate enough that it transmitted the flight log in the seconds before impact, and I was able to recover the wrecked craft. The flight log and its replay seem to indicate that the Mavic simply malfunctioned.

 

[Flymeaway]

Please watch this tutorial video to learn how to sync the flight records:

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For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

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Once the sync is completed, please provide the following information so we can submit your report to data analysis:


1. Model of your aircraft:

2. Application you used on your mobile device to operate the drone:

2. Email address associated with your DJI account used for your last flight:

3. Date and time of the incident:

4. Serial Number of your remote controller:

5. Description of your operation when it flew away: